In the eighth annual Disruptor 50 list, CNBC identifies private companies whose breakthroughs are influencing business and market competition at an accelerated pace. They are poised to emerge from the coronavirus pandemic with tech platforms that have the power to dominate. The start-ups making the 2020 Disruptor list are at the epicenter of a world changing in previously unimaginable ways, turning ideas in cybersecurity, education, health IT, logistics/delivery, fintech and agriculture into a new wave of billion-dollar businesses.
A majority of them, in fact, already are billion-dollar businesses: 36 disruptors this year are unicorns that have already reached or passed the $1 billion valuation mark. Maybe more important this year: 37 have hired new employees since the pandemic began, and 19 have pivoted their products or launched new ones to meet the challenges of the pandemic.
The 50 companies selected using the proprietary Disruptor 50 methodology have raised over $74 billion in venture capital, according to PitchBook, at an implied Disruptor 50 list market valuation of near-$277 billion. Technology is already a major part of our daily lives and the public markets, and that will only increase on the other side of Covid-19, from the future of food supply to health-care diagnostics and the way we shop, study, work and pay.
1 | Stripe | Unlocking the lockdown's biggest value |
2 | Coupang | Beating Bezos at his own online game? |
3 | Indigo Agriculture | The future of farming is carbon negative |
4 | Coursera | Online ed's biggest test begins |
5 | Klarna | No online sale left behind |
6 | Tempus | Precision medicine for the Covid crisis |
7 | Zipline | Medicine takes flight autonomously |
8 | SoFi | The future of your financial future |
9 | Neteera | Contactless health |
10 | Gojek | Indonesia's original ridehail, growing up |
11 | WeLab | Branchless banking |
12 | DoorDash | The most in-demand in on-demand |
13 | Heal | The next big thing in medicine: housecalls? |
14 | Movandi | A network key to the 5G future |
15 | Better.com | Closing the mortgage gap online |
16 | Grab | Southeast Asia's super app |
17 | Lemonade | A.I.-ing the end of the insurance agent |
18 | Root Insurance | Replacing demographics with real driver data |
19 | Healthy.io | Home-based health testing |
20 | GoodRx | Technology tackling the high cost of health care |
21 | Eat JUST | Just the egg, no chicken |
22 | goPuff | The convenience store gets more convenient |
23 | Affirm | Building new credit history |
24 | Kabbage | A main street lending lifeline |
25 | Chime | No-fee banking |
26 | Dave | Taking down the overdraft Goliath |
27 | Trulioo | Verification for a more virtual world |
28 | Ripple | A crypto answer to money transfer |
29 | TALA | Making microloans add up to a billion |
30 | Didi Chuxing | Riding a post-Covid pickup in China |
31 | SentinelOne | Cybercrime is up; so are defenses |
32 | Butterfly Network | A smarter ultrasound |
33 | Marqeta | Paying with a full deck of cards |
34 | Apeel | Ridding the world of rotten produce |
35 | K Health | Primary (smartphone) care |
36 | Databricks | Data help for data nerds |
37 | C3.ai | The world's biggest brains building an even bigger one |
38 | Attabotics | Amazon's ant-size competition |
39 | CLEAR | Biometric screening for a new world of hidden dangers |
40 | Snowflake | A data warehouse in the cloud |
41 | Airbnb | Your delayed destination |
42 | Duolingo | The universal language |
43 | LanzaTech | A carbon-capture moonshot |
44 | Ginkgo Bioworks | The world's most advanced manufacturing |
45 | Guild Education | Upskilling America |
46 | Robinhood | The new bull market-makers |
47 | Convoy | A monster trucking problem solved |
48 | Beautycounter | A makeover for the cosmetics industry |
49 | Impossible Foods | Doesn't seem so impossible anymore, does it? |
50 | UiPath | The robots are coming for your boring, repetitive job |